Defender Steven Taylor knows Newcastle United are under pressure because last season wasn’t good enough

Steven Taylor does not need to be told that Newcastle United weren’t good enough last season. In fact, he freely admits it.

However, if there’s anything that Whitley Bay lad Taylor can take from last term it is that the whole experience has made the Magpies even stronger going into the new campaign.

The former England Under-21 captain will hope that is evident at Bloomfield Road tomorrow afternoon.

For it is on the North West coast that United will welcome their biggest following of fans this summer against Blackpool.

Just more than 1,000 travelled to Motherwell and you could count the United fans on two hands during the tour of Portugal.

But around 2,000 Toon fans are expected at Bloomfield Road and the judgements of supporters – who are far from happy at the lack of transfer activity – will begin once more.

Taylor has never been afraid to come out and face criticism during his 10 years on the first-team stage at United.

But Taylor’s insight into the dressing room at Newcastle this summer underlines the hunger to succeed in the camp this year and put things right.

He told the Chronicle: “You will always have up and down seasons.

“Last year was a down – we have to pull it back this year.

“I’ve said before that we are now under pressure.

“We understand that. It is up to us as players to stand up and be counted. The fans want a reaction. That’s why our pre-season is tougher than ever – as it should be.”

Despite not making a breakthrough in the transfer market, Newcastle have rarely strayed out of the media limelight this summer.

With controversial director of football Joe Kinnear taking up the role of transfer chief, Newcastle have been under the spotlight, although there is clear blue water between Kinnear’s duties and those of Alan Pardew.

Taylor is confident that Pardew can take the team on to better things in the new campaign.

He said: “What he did to get us into the top five was something special.

“But we knew we over-achieved that year. That season there were games where we probably should have lost and we ended up winning, nicking it right at the end.

“People always remember the result rather than performance.”

Taylor and his team-mates had accusations of a split camp levelled at them last term.

But the Academy product insists that wasn’t the case and that their philosophy remains the same going into a new season. He said: “The only thing we can do is stick together.

“We have spoken about that from day one of pre-season. The gaffer, JC (John Carver) and Steve Stone have mentioned it.

“People will be trying to upset us all of the time and we have to be united like we were and get results.

“Last year we had injuries and we were punished.

“We know we weren’t good enough and hold our hands up. But that’s behind us now.

“The good thing is we have a new season ahead, starting at Man City.”

By that time, talk of the slide down the table and the brush with relegation will be very much forgotten.

New challenges now lie in place.

Taylor reflected: “I think that everybody realises we came under a massive amount of pressure last year.

“This year everybody seems to be under-estimating us.

“I suppose we’ll be getting looked at very closely.

“We have had already talked about that.

“We need a big pre-season from everybody.

“The main thing is everybody needs to prove themselves.

“Last season we were doing running sessions and people were dropping out when they felt tight.

“Even the lads who are tired now are getting on with it. You can rest up afterwards.

“The discipline has been spot on, all of the lads have bought into it.

“Fair play to them, hopefully we can continue that going into the games.

“We have to keep ticking over. For me last year it was about keeping myself strong.

“I had help from the fitness department.

“They are on my tail every morning and making me do this, that and the other. So it’s tough but it is worth it.”

Send a story

Advertising Department

Print

The Chronicle is read by more adults than any other regional newspaper on sale in the area. With 170,115 average issue readers, this reach extends to 366,753 weekly readers – that’s over 1/4 of adults in the area!

The average time spent reading the Chronicle is 31 minutes; which shows the length of time that readers are engaging with the editorial and advertising content.

49,199* copies of the Chronicle are sold on average each day as it continues to be an integral part of the region.

*ABC Newcastle Chronicle 100% paid, Mon - Sat, JICREG, 1/10/2012

Online

Unique Users: 1.6m

Page Views: 10m

Audience figures from Omniture, monthly average (Jan - Jun 2014).

More than 1 in 3 ChronicleLive users have clicked through to an online advertisement, demonstrating that our users are responsive and receptive to Internet advertising messages.

ChronicleLive reaches an internet-savvy audience, with 84% of users having purchased products or services online in the past 12 months.

Download our rate cards for all the prices of our print and digital products.